23
votes
The Amish keep to themselves. And they’re hiding a horrifying secret: "A year of reporting by Cosmo and Type Investigations reveals a culture of incest, rape, and abuse."
Link information
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- Title
- The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They're Hiding a Horrifying Secret
- Authors
- Sarah McClure
- Published
- Jan 14 2020
- Word count
- 3340 words
It's nice to have this in the forefront of the public eye, but there's been an awareness of it for a long time.
2006
2010
2013 (Mennonite...different, but not really)
2016
There's older articles as well that are harder to source with a quick google recall, before everything was posted online. There's countless books and blogs.
Dangerous cults are dangerous. Power structures that involve a heirarchy with a 'voice of god's will' at the top are going to have abuse problems. See also Catholics and Mormons.
This is properly horrid stuff. This line from Spotlight has stuck with me:
This really is the perfect storm for supporting abusers. Limited contact with the outside world (English isn’t even their first language), a distrust of law enforcement, a very relaxed internal penal system. What is it about humans that causes so many to prefer to sweep these problems under the rug, thus enabling the abusers?
I wrote four paragraphs about how maybe it has to do with the fact that you have to keep up appearances or cut the abused person loose for the sake of your image, but it's not that, is it? Not entirely, at least. It's maintaining the status quo.
My family has its fair share of people who'd rather dissociate from heavy, dangerous things than take action, because taking action against heavy, dangerous things is prone to be uncomfortable and painful, and it may come with a loss (money, time, relatives, the sense of commonality with your peers...). Some people, far outside the Amish, would rather close their eyes and hope things pass than call out ill behavior and protect the innocent.
Knowing that nobody will stand up for you can be fucking terrifying. I can only imagine what it must be like when you also have a very real threat in your midst.
Shame.
I suppose at a fundamental level, it's because evolutionary pressures have given us a generic psychology that prioritizes survival not morality. Fortunately it has also given us the capacity to choose to be moral.